Winding Road
by kouw
Summary: Elsie visits Anna and muses on life - sentimental bit of fluff


**A/N: **Sentimental little bit of fluff - many thanks to _onmyside_ for the beta!

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"There there now... Shhh... It's alright... You leave your mother be in peace for an hour or so, petal..."

Elsie held the little bundle against her chest and paced the small front room of the Bates's cottage, all the while murmuring softly. Soon the wailing diminished to a cry, then a whimper until the big blue eyes were no longer filled with tears but trying to focus on Elsie's face.

"You're a bonnie wee thing..." She softly stroked the baby's forehead with the tip of her nose, taking in the newborn's scent.

"How do you like it in the world, so far?" She was still pacing, but nearing the settee. "You picked out a fine set of parents to look after you." She sat down carefully and shifted the baby so the head was in the crook of her elbow as it was propped up against the cushions.

"I've known your mother a very long time..." Elsie touched the child's cheek, smooth and soft - only a few blemishes left. The baby was two weeks old and Else had gone up to the cottage every day to look in on Anna. She had taken a scullery maid with her three times so far to make sure the cottage was kept clean and the laundry taken away.

Her present to the new mother.

She knew the other maids had thought it too practical, almost cold-hearted, but Anna had been thankful and the maids didn't need to know that upstairs in the Bates's nursery the wardrobe was filled with little shirts and stockings all sewed and knitted by Elsie Hughes, Housekeeper - stern and strict killjoy and thwarter of midnight trysts.

They also didn't need to know she had cried when the baby had arrived as she stood by the head of the bed, her hand grasped tightly in Anna's. The sound of the child crying a blessed relief for all of them. She had shaken John's hand and helped wash Anna while the midwife tended to the baby.

A little girl.

Whole and loud and perfect.

"You are still perfect... Drinking well and sleeping well and making yourself known." She rocked the baby as the eyes drooped. Elsie started singing softly, but clear. A lullaby from a time long gone, a place far away.

It's a good feeling, the warmth of the baby in her arms, the knowledge Anna is getting some rest upstairs, that 'her girl' is going to be alright. Elsie feels warm all the way through. Content. Happy, even. She keeps singing; broken phrases of near forgotten Gaelic, happy to be forming the words, more and more coming back to her as she sings.

"You look a natural."

His words startle her and she is pulled from her cocoon of tenderness and the blossom of life.

"This isn't the first baby I've held." She says.

"No." He sits down next to her, leans in to softly touch the baby's cheek.

"She's a little beauty." She smiles at him with thanks and a hint of a blush - she doesn't want to admit why, doesn't want to admit that sitting here together conjures up thoughts of them being grandparents.

They are not this baby's grandparents and she'll do well to remember it. She'll do well to remember she is nothing to this child but a convenience to her mother who is recuperating from seven hours of labour after nine months of queasiness, back aches and unexpected emotional outbursts.

There's little of 'them' either. An understanding, wordless, established years and years ago, when she had come to Downton as head housemaid and he was still first footman and they had grown into their respective roles together, sharing life's pleasures and joy as well as supporting each other through hardship and sorrow.

She loves him. He loves her and it vibrates in the air around them, unseen and hardly felt by others. At times his love heals her. Other times she feels she has to hide the ugly truth from him to spare him. Sometimes she wishes she could spare herself.

"You've come to collect me?" She asks, gently rocking the baby as she whimpers from the sudden voices.

"Lady Grantham has asked you to meet her in the Drawing Room before dinner."

"I'll take her upstairs then, let Anna know I'm leaving."

"We can stay a little while longer if you like."

Their eyes meet and she sighs. "I might never leave if we don't go now." She says. He smiles and she finds it isn't his usual, easy smile.

They sit still with the baby, their minds on other things, on other lives, thinking that they have made their choices and that they have been the right ones.

But that sometimes even the right choices can leave a bitter taste in your mouth and a true sense of regret.

"We'll set up camp here. I'm sure Lady Grantham will understand and Mr Barrow can take over my work."

They laugh. "You are staying here too then?"

"Absolutely." He puts his arm around her shoulder.

"I'll always be by your side."

That is how Anna found them: her daughter asleep in Mr Carson's arms, Mrs Hughes' head on his shoulder, his nose in her hair.

A perfect domestic picture.

If it weren't for the furniture, she might have thought she had woken up in the wrong house, walked into something private.

Well, she has walked in on something private, but it is her home, her furniture and her daughter making the adorable little pouty lipped face she pulls just before she gets ready to cry for a feeding.

The shrill, piercing sound startles the elderly couple out of their momentary dream world and they are happy to see Anna standing at the ready.

"We've got to go." Elsie says a few minutes later while Charles finds her coat. "I'll be back tomorrow."

"Alright. Thank you, Mrs Hughes." Else runs her hand over Anna's blonde hair, takes a last look at the nursing baby - feeling none of the embarrassment she knows Charles feels, why he has made himself scarce as soon as Anna started unbuttoning her blouse (only normal, really, it wouldn't do for a man to stare at it, even if it is natural and pure).

"Goodbye, dear."

"Goodbye."

Outside the cottage, Charles helps her in her coat. She takes his arm as they walk towards the house.

"You know that 'other way' you spoke of, all those years ago?"

She does, it's never been from her mind since she'd asked. "What of it?"

"Sometimes you get that other way in the end. It may have been longer and more winding than expected, but you sometimes still get it."

She grabs him closer and reaches up to his cheek. Kisses him.

"You are a dear, sweet man."

"You are a tender-hearted, sweet woman." He kisses her back. They stand still in the middle of the lane, turn to each other.

And kiss in earnest.


End file.
